Mencap - Top 80 Masterclasses

Bespoke workshops for leaders wanting to be more strategic and better at leading people

The Client

Mencap is a charity committed to being the voice of learning disability. They are headquartered in the City of London and employ over 7,000 staff around the country delivering a huge range of services. The ‘Top 80’ are the most senior leaders in the organisation outside of the Board.

The Brief

Mencap had already devoted considerable resources to creating ‘Our Leadership Way’ – a blueprint for what great leadership looks like for them. Fuelled by a number of predominnantly peer and leader led learning events, their Head of L&D contacted Catseye to bring in some workshop expertise in the areas of: Being Strategic, and Leading Others.

The Solution

After extensive chats with the L&D team, who had a highly proficient grasp of their leaders’ needs, work commenced on the design. All members of the Top 80 who had a need for development in the two areas were engaged via an online questionnaire with an introductory short film. Questions helped them get to grips with their own contexts to see the need and potential benefits (personal and organisational) of getting better in these areas.

The workshops had brief bursts of input around best practice to stimulate thinking; then small group work created space to wrestle with the concepts and apply new thinking to old problems. A variety of facilitation techniques were used to keep momentum throughout the workshops.

The Results

The L&D team at Mencap had a strong growth mindset so there was loads of experimentation in how we followed up. ‘How to’ videos created during the workshops fluttered around Twitter, whilst further tips and references were shared via Yammer. The pre-exisiting learning action groups kept the conversation going as members continued to support each other in their specific actions, as well as working hard to adjust long-term habits.

The Top 80, in conjunction with the L&D team, went on to create ways of passing their skills and knowledge on to the next layer of managers.